B. B. King Quotes

I think that once an artist has proven herself and you sell lots of records, you should be compensated.

No one sells records anymore. It's all about touring. It's all greatest hits records and box sets. And even those don't sell. People just go online.

You gotta' sell a million records before you talk about getting paid at a major [label].

A lot of people don't know about music, but buy records. A lot of people that know about music can't afford to buy records.

I have never made a cent off a record in my life. I have never recouped enough, and I never sold enough. When people see you have a song on MTV, they think you are doing well - but you know, the way the traditional label deal was set up, it is really hard for an artist, unless they sold a lot, to see anything.

Companies like Spotify, the new Apple service, and all the others are really going to have to pay artists more. And I think it's a matter of time; I think a lot of these companies and the individuals that are involved in them realize that as well. They know that artists are not getting what they should be getting.

If you are a musician who has released albums, it would perhaps be morbidly interesting to know how much you would be owed if everyone who now has your music had actually bought your record.

I want to make more fans, sell records.

I think records are irrelevant, but I'm being approached about it all the time. If I could avoid it, that would be great.

If you're an artist, and you put out a record - most artists only have one or two hit records - that has 100 million streams, on certain services you only get paid on 75% of those streams. How's an artist going to live like that?

What people don't realize is that the initial sales of an album isn't where the bulk of your returns come from. It happens over time, sitting in the catalog, picking up commercials, getting included on packages here and there - there's years and years of pipeline money that goes on. That's where real money comes from - building that body of work.

We've always had big gaps between records.

Now we know that, the way contracts are set up, it's not really made for artists to get rich from selling records - that's the company's one shot to make money.

People will download the music for free and they'll pay for it if they want to give you a compliment. They don't have to pay for it. And the only way the artist can make money was by touring 'cause the record label didn't take that money. Unfortunately now, cause the record company's not making money from the downloads, now they want to take money away from everything.

People don't buy records anymore. I don't know how people can support themselves.

Most of my life, everybody made more money than I did at the places I worked. In fact, when I've been an employee, I have never been anywhere close to being the highest paid person there, never. I was working hard. I was working hard. I was doing things I didn't want to do, that I thought I should do. I was getting up every day, going to work, did not phone in sick. Striving. Trying to get ahead, you know, doing what Obama says, working hard and applying myself and trying to get ahead. There was always somebody, there were always a lot of people that earned more than I did.

I feel fortunate to have made records during an era where people actually bought music. But I have friends in struggling up-and-coming bands now that will certainly never be able to pay the rent, because music has been devalued.

I never made any money off of my records. It gave me the name across the country so that I could do some of the things in my personal appearances.

The people who pay the biggest price are those who are struggling.

Singer/songwriters spend two or three years making an album, and then it goes up for sale and everybody pirates it and you don't make any money. Whereas, writing a film score you still get presented with a paycheck.

I want to keep making records as long as I can and that's the beginning and end of my concern about selling records.

The label's going great, because we're not idiots. We're not trying to sue everyone that downloads everything. We try to give the fans a bunch of free stuff, and then have them buy the record. Without buying the record, it doesn't support your artist. These idiots like Radiohead and Sharon Osbourne that are like, "Free Ozzfest!", "Pay what you can for a record!" - Radiohead's already got their yachts and mansions. Sharon Osbourne already has her empire.

Workers' wages are not keeping up with inflation. Their wages are not on pace with the amount of work that they do. We work harder and longer in America and still people's wages are not keeping up with that.

Whenever I do my live shows, I feel artistically inspired and excited because I get to do and say a lot of things that I can't if I just make a record. A lot of times it's the only way people are going to hear my music because you don't get to have your music played on Top 40 if you're above the age of 35.

The demise of the monolithic record industry has been, for a lot of people, really liberating and emancipating.